


As Long As We Can Live in Harmony

by screaminginternally



Category: Cheaper by the Dozen (Movies)
Genre: Elliot/Sarah referenced, Gen, Parent-Child Relationship, childhood throwback-movie mood, kids low-key just living up to their dad's expectations to keep him off their backs, messy family dynamics, step-parent appreciation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:00:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23768131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screaminginternally/pseuds/screaminginternally
Summary: It takes the Murtaugh’s about two months into having a new step-mom to decide that, yeah, Sarina’s pretty cool.
Relationships: Sarina Murtaugh & the Murtaugh kids
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	As Long As We Can Live in Harmony

**Author's Note:**

> How the hell did I get here? This movie came out fifteen years ago?? Most of the kid actors in this movie are in their thirties now?????
> 
> But apparently, getting social-distanced all the way into my parent’s house means that my entertainment choices regress back into the movies I loved watching back in the pre-2010 years of my childhood.
> 
> And let me tell you, Cheaper By the Dozen 2 was a movie I loved So Much as a kid, but re-watching it in my 20’s, I picked up a lot more on the little script-lines about what the Murtaugh family dynamics are. And they . . . did not paint the prettiest picture. But it’s also a feel-good family movie, so hardcore angst should stay far and away from fanfic about it, thank you.

It takes the Murtaugh’s about two months into having a new step-mom to decide that, yeah, Sarina’s pretty cool.

Yeah, she’s young enough to date Calvin, yeah, she doesn’t seem to have the college education that Dad ~~wants~~ expects all of them to achieve, yeah, she’s honestly pretty shallow.

But she does _like them_ , which is more than can be said for Eliza, or Sandra, or Rachel, or Tiffany – she wants to spend time with them.

She proof-reads Calvin’s college papers for punctuation, and pretends that particle physics is actually interesting.

She helps Annie hide her sketchbooks and paints, and she mails the application to Madison Arts.

She helps Daniel train for his surfing competitions, and makes sure that Dad doesn’t realise that Elliot isn’t actually practising Tchaikovsky’s Overture of 1812 when he’s actually doing the drum-line for a Green Day song; she helps Kenneth and Lisa and Robin and Becky with their school homework, even though when you ask, she’ll freely admit that she wasn’t very good at Math or Science or English when she was in middle school – and she definitely didn’t go to a private school like theirs: a tiny town in Ohio with less than a thousand people and a public library a three-hour round-trip by bus does not an excellent education make.

But she’s nice – she’s open and friendly, and when they vent about anything, school, boys, girls, Dad’s expectations for their success and his bitter, unrelenting disappointment when they fail, and training sessions and tutoring and studying that goes on to fill their whole weekends and how the Murtaugh kids (who are all so snobby and their dad is so judgemental, says their classmates) are really only friends with each other because they don’t have the free time to be friends with people they don’t live with-

(Although Calvin says that it gets easier when you move out and go to college, so long as it’s to a college that Dad can’t get to in less than three hours, because that way he’ll call ahead, and you can hide whatever evidence that you’re actually having a good time and not burying yourself in Academia until you drown in it-)

-but Sarina doesn’t give them the third degree about their complaints the way Dad would. She just listens, and encourages, and offer to talk to Dad about maybe reshuffling their schedules so that they can have time off: and she actually gets through to him, given that Dad told them that when they’re at Lake Winnetka in summer, they’ll only have to do _two_ hours of study time per day instead of _four_.

Sarina’s _really_ cool, actually. That’s the amendment on the Murtaugh opinion of her, when they all hear that.

And at Lake Winnetka, she’s honestly even cooler – she’s more than game to go wakeboarding, canoeing, jet-skiing - all the stuff that makes being on the lake fun, unlike the other girlfriends that Dad has brought home before her. Rachel didn’t even want to _hear_ the word camping, never mind actually _do_ it.

She’s also willing to be Dad’s wing-woman in antagonizing Mr. Baker – Elliot honestly doesn’t have any clue _why_ Dad dislikes Mr. Baker so much, but having Sarina around to back up whatever he’s bragging about works better than the last time the Baker’s were with them at Lake Winnetka. It’d been right after Amanda had left, and Dad had wanted them to Be The Best so bad – Calvin said it was because he needed to feel in control about his life (which Elliot doesn’t really get – Dad’s in control of every aspect of their lives, so why did he need it so bad that one summer?), but it also meant they didn’t get to spend any actual time having fun with the Bakers themselves.

Which sucked, because the Baker kids were honestly the best thing about Lake Winnetka every summer before then – Jake and Sarah were _awesome_ back then, and they’re even better now, and Mike is definitely getting close to - - maybe not Sarah’s level at skateboarding, but he’d get up to Jake’s one day.

That was what Elliot and everyone always liked about the Bakers – it was like, a natural grouping off: Calvin and Nora and Lorraine and Annie and Charlie, Daniel and Henry and Jessica and Kim and Becky, Kenneth and Mark, and then Elliot got Jake and Sarah and Mike. It was almost enough to make up for not really having friends at school – because they all got to hang out with ten friends during the summer.

Sarina coming into their lives was like a siren call or something – Sarina comes to Lake Winnetka, and the Bakers came back to the lake too. Because none of Dad’s girlfriends had come to the lake with them before – they’d always come and gone by the time summer rolled around, and Dad had that rule for himself: no girlfriends of his were coming to the lake unless he was sure they were gonna stick around. But he married Sarina, so clearly the third Mrs. Murtaugh was the embodiment of Hope Over Experience (or whatever that quote was that Annie’d made, when Dad’s engagement to Tiffany didn’t make it to the altar). And Sarina came to Lake Winnetka, with the Bakers not far behind.

Yeah, yeah, Elliot knows that you can’t lump those two things together and say “Oh, that’s a cause-and-effect”, because it’s not, but . . . it feels like it was meant to be _something_.

Anyway, he got distracted from whatever competition Dad and Mr Baker always got into this summer, because – look, Sarah’s always been pretty, and this summer, she was just super cool, and also pretty, and he was having a hard enough time remembering how to _speak_ to her, never mind be hyperaware what his Dad was doing at the same time. Until he _had_ to pay attention to what his Dad and Mr. Baker were doing, when they _came to the movie with him and Sarah_.

Elliot’s felt embarrassed about his dad before in his life, but this was literally the actual _most_ he’s ever been embarrassed by his dad.

You can ignore your Dad talking about you _so loudly_ at a school event. It’s much harder ignoring your Dad dangling a guy over a movie-theatre balcony, especially when that guy’s daughter is _the girl you’re on a date with_.

And unlike his Dad, Sarina actually _listened_ to why he was upset about it. Dad might’ve been embarrassed by himself, but it’s like being around Mr. Baker makes his Dad lose whatever common sense he ever has – all he wants to do it brag about everything Elliot and his siblings do, but he won’t ever even _kind of_ listen to what they want. But Sarina does. Sarina always listens, to a rant or an offhand comment.

Which means that when Annie snaps during the race – which, _whoa_ , who saw that coming in the middle of the canoe race – and everyone all follows in suit (because duh, of course they did. They _like_ the Bakers) Sarina actually makes Dad _wake up_.

And all it took was that one day, apparently, because Dad actually cooled down after that summer – he let them drop some of their extracurricular’s, and he let Annie go to art school and move in with Charlie Baker, and Calvin took a _whole year_ off from going to graduate school; Danny tried out for his school’s musical, and Dad didn’t kick up a stink because he didn’t get the lead; Robin quit the Academic Decathlon and started working at an animal shelter, and Lisa and Becky both joined roller derby instead of gymnastics and diving – and Dad doesn’t say a _word_ of disagreement. Just, “As long as it makes you happy, and you put one hundred per cent in, then I’ll be okay with it.”

_As long as it makes you happy, I’m okay with it._ Never before had that sentence been utterly by Jimmy Murtaugh to his kids.

Sarina is the favourite of the entire Murtaugh family. Make no mistake.


End file.
